


Carnival Games

by jibberjabber13



Series: A Rose by Any Other Name [3]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Autumn, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Grief/Mourning, Humor, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 05:52:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibberjabber13/pseuds/jibberjabber13
Summary: Shane’s to do list: Raise chickens, get out of volunteering at the Stardew Valley Fair, and make the farmer smile on the first anniversary of her father’s passing. Easy enough.





	Carnival Games

Sunday mornings were Shane’s favorite part of the week—he didn’t have to face the monotony of his job at the local JojaMart, and he could sleep off his hangover for as long as he needed. He also found there was a kind of peace in Sunday’s arrival, a lazy and quiet atmosphere that he liked. 

Unless, of course, he woke up to find the mayor of Pelican Town standing in his kitchen, wearing his infamous purple “shorts” and not much else. Which was exactly the situation Shane found himself in one morning in mid-Fall.

“Um, hey there Mayor Lewis,” Shane said, trying to avert his gaze from the shirtless mayor as much as possible and praying that he wouldn’t have to face his Aunt Marnie too.

“Hiya, Shane,” Lewis said. If he noticed Shane was uncomfortable, he made no acknowledgement of it, and instead turned up the burner on the stove, where he was cooking up a batch of scrambled eggs. “How’s everything on the ranch these days?”

“You know,” he replied. “Good.” 

“Hey, while I’m here, I need to ask you for a favor,” Lewis said. The spatula in his hand made a loud scratching noise against the pan as he scooped the eggs onto two separate plates. One for him and one for Marnie, Shane supposed. “As you know, the Stardew Valley Fair is next week, and it’s a big deal for our town. A huge tourism opportunity, lots of visitors from all around the country.”

“I’ve been to the fair before,” Shane said, wondering when the mayor was going to get to his point. “I’ve lived here for three years.”

“Well, because we have so many visitors coming, we need volunteers to run the carnival stands.” He placed both plates on the table before rummaging around the other kitchen cabinets, searching for forks. “And we’re a bit...short on people this year.”

“No.”

“Ah, come on, Shane, do your old man a favor, would you?” Lewis said with a wink.

“You’re not my dad, Lewis.”

A door opening cut off the mayor’s response, and to Shane’s embarrassment, his aunt entered the room wearing only her nightgown. She yawned and ran a hand through her hair. “Good morning, Lew—oh, Shane. You’re awake.” She had been walking towards the kitchen, but stopped abruptly when she noticed her nephew’s presence.

“Painfully so,” said Shane. To distract himself from the situation that was unfolding in front of him, he reached into the freezer and pulled out a frozen pizza.

“Ah, there you are,” Lewis said, walking over to give Marnie a kiss on the cheek. Her face turned a faint shade of pink. “I was just asking Shane if he’d like to volunteer at this year’s fair.”

“Oh,” said Marnie and looked at Shane, who busied himself with punching numbers on the microwave to defrost his food. “Well, of course he would. Right, Shane?” Even though Marnie was generally a friendly and kind woman, there was always a subtle warning in her voice when she wanted Shane to do something but didn’t want to outright tell him he had to do it. 

He sighed, resigned to giving up his day to running some trivial carnival game. When Marnie got that tone in her voice, he found it difficult to say no. “I guess I’ll do it.”

Lewis looked pleased. “Excellent, I’ll see you next week at the fair.”

“Looking forward to it.” The microwave dinged, and Shane took out the pizza, hoping to escape to his room as quickly as possible, when Marnie stopped him.

“Shane, why don’t you sit and have breakfast with us?” she said.

“You know, I would love to,” Shane said, picking at the cheese on his pizza. “But I need to feed the chickens this morning, so I have to eat quickly.” It wasn’t a total lie, he had been planning on visiting the coop at some point during the day.

Since moving to the ranch, Shane had picked up an interest in raising chickens and was admittedly pretty attached to some of the ones Marnie kept. Recently, he’d been learning more about the care of chickens and had even checked out a book from the town library on the subject, which he kept tucked under his bed.

After wolfing down his pizza, a desperate attempt to avoid making small talk with his aunt and her “secret” lover, he headed out to the coop. It was clean, since he’d just swept up the other day, and on the side was new paneling he’d installed himself; revamping the coop was sort of a recent pet project for him and kept him from completely wasting away his days on pizza and video games like he normally did. He was greeted by a chorus of clucking from the eight chickens that currently resided at the ranch as he began to spread feed for them.

Sometimes, even though he knew it was absolutely insane, he liked to talk to the animals as he worked. They were simpler than humans; they didn’t respond or pass judgement.

“Charlie, what do you do if you find a lady hen particularly attractive?” Shane said, squatting down and scratching the top of the chicken’s head. 

Since the summer, Shane had been regularly taking Jas to the neighboring farm to visit Rose, the kind and quiet girl who tended to the land there. Jas loved to listen to Rose describe all the plants around the farm, and Rose let her help with chores like watering crops and collecting berries. As for Shane, well, he loved being around Rose in general. Her gentle nature, the way she treated everything from her crops to other people with a certain delicacy, was like a balm to his wounds.

Of course, now that he’d finally acknowledged his own affections, he still had no idea what to do with them. Dealing with his emotions had never been one of his strengths, and he feared that she didn’t feel the same way about him. The thought of Rose laughing in his face when he told her how he felt was enough to keep him from saying anything for the time being.

* * *

The Stardew Valley Fair, held annually for over three decades, was a time honored Pelican Town tradition. For an entire week before the fair, the main route through town was shut down for construction and setup. Burly construction workers, managed by Robin, assembled the various carnival booths, while a team of decorators under the guidance of Mayor Lewis made sure the town looked its best. It always irritated Shane because the fair preparations were right in the middle of his path to work.

On the day of the event, crowds of people swarmed the town square. Most of the visitors, despite Lewis’s declaration that they were from “all over the country,” were actually from small, neighboring towns. The majority came as part of families, and children ran amok around the fair, laughing and shrieking with delight at all the games to play and animals to pet.

Shane ended up manning a booth with some kind of game that involved throwing darts at balloons until they burst. He spent most of the morning drumming his fingers against the counter and trying not to jump too much at the loud pops the balloons made when they were hit.

At some point during the day, Jas wandered up to his booth, placing her hands on her hips and demanding that he leave his post at the carnival game and come play with her. When he told her that he had to keep watch over the booth, she stuck out her bottom lip, which started to wobble a bit.

“Ah, dammit,” he muttered under his breath. He reached out and tapped Sam on the shoulder, the spiky-haired teenager that was his coworker at JojaMart. “Hey, kid. I’ll pay you fifty bucks to watch this stand.”

Sam looked at his two friends, who Shane recognized as Abigail and Sebastian, and shrugged. “Sure, why not,” he said, taking the bills from Shane’s hand.

Shane thanked him and left the booth to spend the rest of the afternoon with Jas, which involved being dragged from carnival game to carnival game and stopping at every single animal in the petting zoo. After only an hour, he was exhausted and ready to go home and sleep.

Just as he was about to suggest they head home, Rose arrived at the fair late, lugging an enormous bag full of various objects from her farm and cradling two large sized cauliflower under her arms. She set her possessions down next to one of the Grange display cases and began carefully arranging her items in it. Jas tugged on Shane’s shirt sleeve and pointed at her.

“Look, Uncle Shane,” she said. “There she is.”

The farmer had just finished adjusting the position of a wheel of cheese when she noticed Jas and Shane. She gave them a small smile as a greeting.

“This is for you, Miss Rose,” Jas said proudly, holding out a stuffed teddy bear. “I took it from one of the booths.”

Rose frowned as she took the bear from the girl. “Jas, you...stole this for me?”

“Borrowed. Uncle Shane says I should say I borrowed it.”

“Right.” Rose let out a small laugh and glanced at Shane. 

“What can I say,” he said. “She’s a natural felon.”

Rose laughed. “Well, I love it. My dad used to take me to fairs like this when I was little. You know, before...” She swallowed, the smile slowly fading from her face.

Her eyes looked so downcast that Shane wanted to reach out and give her a hug in the ensuing silence, but he didn’t. “You never told me what happened to your dad,” he finally said. 

“Lung cancer. Smoked a pack a day for fifteen years, and I was still somehow shocked that it happened,” she said, staring at the stuffed bear in her hands, which she was turning over and over. “Actually, it’s the first anniversary tomorrow. Of his death.”

“Oh,” Shane said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s just how things happen, I guess,” said Rose. “I’m headed out tomorrow afternoon, to go to the cemetery.”

“Well, um, if you need anything at all tomorrow, just let me know, okay?”

“Thanks, Shane.” She went back to putting together her Grange display, and Shane went back to playing with Jas. The rest of the day, he wondered how Rose was doing and thought about her sitting cross-legged, alone and crying, in front of her father’s grave. He didn’t like the thought of her being sad. He didn’t like it at all.

* * *

The next day, Shane slipped out of work on an early lunch break to go buy flowers for Rose. He figured she could take them with her to her dad’s grave, and he thought they might cheer her up, too. 

As he entered the general store, the bell above the door gave a small tinkle, alerting the shop owner, Pierre, to his arrival. Shane had never really liked Pierre; there was something about the man’s smug grin and forced demeanor, like he was someone who lived to sell, that irritated him. 

“Shane,” he said with false cheer. “So good to see you. What can I get you?”

“Can I just get a bouquet of flowers? Or something?” said Shane. In the face of Pierre’s smirk, he was beginning to lose confidence in his plan.

Pierre raised his eyebrows. “The bouquet? Are you sure?”

Shane gritted his teeth. “Yes, I’m sure. Just give me the damn flowers.”

“I’m surprised,” said Pierre, smirk widening into a grin. “But I guess it’s nice to see you’ve found a special someone. That farmer girl sure is nice.” He turned to retrieve the bouquets he kept behind the counter.

Heat rushed instantly to Shane’s face, and he knew his pale cheeks were a furious, burning red. “Who said it’s for her?”

“No one.” Pierre handed Shane the flowers and winked. “I hope whoever she is, she likes them.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Shane mumbled. He grabbed the bouquet and walked quickly out of the store, trying not to look any of the other customers that might have heard their exchange in the eye. As he headed towards Rose’s farm, he tucked the flowers on the inside of his hoodie to keep the people in town from asking questions. Everyone in the valley had a penchant for nosiness that irked Shane.

On the porch outside Rose’s farmhouse, he suddenly felt a shakiness in his legs that wouldn’t go away no matter how many deep breaths he took or how many times he counted to ten to calm himself down. He hovered with his fist over the door for so long that his hand began to cramp up.

Before he could find the courage to knock, Rose suddenly opened the door, startling him. “Shane?”

“Hi,” he said, holding up his hand in a pathetic sort of wave. He unzipped his hoodie and took out the flowers. “I brought you these.”

She stared at the flowers, eyes wide. “Oh. _Oh._ ”

Shane frowned, heart beginning to sink. This wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for. “What is it?”

“It’s just, are you...are you asking me to be your...significant other?” Rose looked at him, forehead wrinkled in confusion. 

“What?” Shane jumped back a bit, as if he’d been electrocuted, and his hand shot up to rest behind his neck. “No, I just, I was just—no, I just wanted to do something nice.”

“Oh,” Rose said, glancing down at the flowers and pursing her lips. “I only asked because Marnie told me a while back that’s what giving someone a bouquet here means. Am I wrong?”

“No,” he said and suddenly realized his mistake. That explained why Pierre had been so weird about him buying the flowers—he was essentially buying a declaration of undying love. For all that Shane liked to think he had this humble little town figured out after a few years of living in it, this one tradition had escaped his memory somehow. “You’re right, I completely forgot that’s what it meant. I’m an idiot.”

To his surprise, Rose began to laugh. It started as a low, quiet giggle, then grew into a deep belly laugh. Shane cracked a grin in response, enjoying the sound of her laughter entirely too much to remain humiliated for long.

“It’s alright, Shane,” she said, shoulders still shaking slightly from laughter. “I understand.”

“Good,” he said, dropping his arm. “I just wanted to, um, to make you feel better. You know, because of your dad and all.”

Her facial expression softened at his words. “Maybe today isn’t a good time,” she said. “But...we can always save them for later.” In a moment that Shane barely had time to register, she stood up on her toes and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, pulling away with a blush on her cheeks. 

“Right,” he said, feeling dazed. He blinked a few times trying to collect his thoughts. “For later.”

She turned around and walked inside for a few minutes, filling up a vase with water and gently placing the flowers in it. When she returned to the porch, she was staring down at the ground and fiddling with her braid, a nervous habit of hers he’d noticed. 

“Actually, if you’re not busy.” She inhaled, then let out a deep breath. “I could really use some company today.”

Shane thought briefly about his job at JojaMart, the endless shelves of preserved goods and the lecture he was bound to receive from Morris, his seedy, cold, soul-crushing manager, and decided it could wait. “I’m not doing anything at all today.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you're interested in reading more (and don't mind the shameless self promotion I'm about to do), there's three other little one-shots like this one in the series and a current multi-chapter that I recently started work on that takes place after the four stories, which you can find at this link [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14901741/chapters/34514367)


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